"He's a guy I love as a basketball fan," (Mark) Jackson said. "To me, he's the third-best shooting guard to play the game. People think I'm crazy for saying that. And there's no disrespect to anybody else. The guy is a winner, he competes, he's an underrated passer, and we all know he can score the basketball."

Gunny Highway:"He's a guy I love as a basketball fan," (Mark) Jackson said. "To me, he's the third-best shooting guard to play the game. People think I'm crazy for saying that. And there's no disrespect to anybody else. The guy is a winner, he competes, he's an underrated passer, and we all know he can score the basketball."

EyeballKid:Gunny Highway: "He's a guy I love as a basketball fan," (Mark) Jackson said. "To me, he's the third-best shooting guard to play the game. People think I'm crazy for saying that. And there's no disrespect to anybody else. The guy is a winner, he competes, he's an underrated passer, and we all know he can score the basketball."

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Same argument against Marino in the NFL, btw. Passing stats in isolation don't win titles. Marino for whatever reason all those years had Shula as coach and never once put a title team together. It was always hey look at me 4000 yards. And an early playoffs exit again and again.

If you regularly make the title game, or regularly make it close then miss thats one thing. But these isolated lone stars who put up great numbers on mediocre teams never impress me that much. At some point where's the will to win, where's the desire to do more than play and amass stats? If you have all this talent and its been a few years, you either need to have a long talk with ownership, or you need to demand a trade to someone who is close and needs your skills set.

If all you do is sit around doing your "job" then your job clearly wasn't to win, it was just to play. That isnt interesting to me. I want to watch guys try to win.

Barkley I admire, he wanted to win. They just couldn't beat MJ and Scottie and yes, Bill Cartwright. All of whom to some extent subsumed their individual talent in order to make a better team. Barkley and Drexler and Gary Payton and Kemp and Stockton and Malone all were trying to win.

Ewing? One man show, big man in NYC, never even made it to the finals except the 2 years Jordan sat out, and even that required a Hue Hollins referee assist on Scottie Pippen to make it happen.

Quick, who was the other star on the Ewing Knicks. Starks? My point exactly. Lone man acts never win it all, and you have to question a player who is content to keep being the one-man act. I do anyway, you might just like watching guys score points all night regardless of whether or not it wins titles.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Right, but then you can't say somebody's a better player in a shooting position, as Jackson says about D-Wade, using his winning championships with a team, as part of the justification. Maravich did what he did with an albatross of a godawful Hawks team around his neck every game, the same way nobody would ever argue Jerome Bettis was a better running back than Barry Sanders was. And, back to my central point, Maravich didn't have to flop to achieve, unlike Dwyane "OW MY EYE" Wade. He's a top 10 guard, that argument can be made. But not top 3.

Is the name of the game Basketball or 1v1 ? I'm sure Maravich could smoke most players 1 on 1. But his game was less useful at putting a winning team on the floor. Not all his fault, blame his GMs. But same thing with Ewing, when a star is good enough that ownership ignores the rest of the team, look what happens.

Jordan had to threaten to quit, LeBron did quit/change teams. No one guy is great enough to win a title on his own. Even if he can shoot 44 a night while wearing crappy chuck taylors.

So in a way it IS his fault. All those points amount to .. nothing .. just points. So if you celebrate points he's a hero, if you watch the game to see how talent forms into a title team... he's pretty much irrelevant.

Right, but then you can't say somebody's a better player in a shooting position, as Jackson says about D-Wade, using his winning championships with a team, as part of the justification. Maravich did what he did with an albatross of a godawful Hawks team around his neck every game, the same way nobody would ever argue Jerome Bettis was a better running back than Barry Sanders was. And, back to my central point, Maravich didn't have to flop to achieve, unlike Dwyane "OW MY EYE" Wade. He's a top 10 guard, that argument can be made. But not top 3.

This discussion needs more beer and less internet. I'll concede whatever it was you're saying, cause we aren't that far off in agreeing, but at the end of the day Wade is only doing what the league allows him to do, blame the league for creating a climate where flopping by stars is encouraged and rewarded.

Gonna be fun to watch this go down. The rest of their December is somewhat tough - @Was, @Phi, Cha, @GS, NY, @Den, Por - but they're playing like crap and probably won't have Nash for most or all of those. Smells like maybe 3-4, or perhaps 4-3? Which would put them at 12 or 13 wins going into January.

Jan is tough: Games @LAC, @SA (after an @Hou the night before), OKC, Mia, @Chi (after an @Tor the night before), @Mem, OKC. Plus 7 more games during the month, with some "These are not gimmes" against Philly, Mil, and Utah. Pretty brutal stretch there; only two 2-day rests in there, two road back-to-backs, 16 games in all..8-8? 9-7 maybe if you want to be optimistic?

Feb/March/April are not quite so bad, but they do have a lot of road games in Feb and March as well. My question is, if they still struggle in January and this teams finds itself around 20 wins Feb 1, with only 36 games left to go, how bad is the panic going to be? D12 could start making noise about testing the FA market; if they can't get him signed they are Screwed with a Capital S. Chris Paul might be available as a '13 free agent, but outside of him, there's not really anyone who would be a "big splash" kind of signing...Iguodala and Josh Smith are probably the next two best guys.

I'm not throwing a handful of dirt on the Lakers this season until Nash & Gasol are healthy, & D12 is 100%. Losing all these games to teams you should beat sucks, but I would rather it happen in Nov/Dec than Apr/May...take your lumps early on, & hit your stride when it's 'winning time.'

hbk72777:Wait, bu but I thought the Knicks were going to suck because they didn't sign Lin? What happened?

Nobody thought that Raymond Fatton and a retirement mode Kidd was going to play as well as they are. In fact, not even the most die-hard Knicks fans thought that the entire team were going to play as well as they had this year. So don't act like you always had the grand knowledge that the Knicks were going to let Lin walk and go 17-5. Odds are you had thought the Knicks would be mediocre again this season just like the rest of us.